The new Portulaca cultivar is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the inventor, Gavriel Danziger, in Moshav Mishmar Hashiva, Israel. The objective of the breeding program was to produce new Portulaca varieties for ornamental commercial applications. The cross resulting in this new variety was made during September 2008.
The seed parent is the unpatented, proprietary seedling variety referred to as Portulaca oleracea ‘PT-8-425’ The pollen parent is unknown, as the crossing resulting in ‘DPAZ17’ was an open pollination, with unidentifiable pollen parents. The new variety was discovered in July 2009 by the inventor in a group of seedlings resulting from the 2008 crossing, in a research greenhouse in Moshav Mishmar Hashiva, Israel.
Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar ‘DPAZ17’ by vegetative cuttings was first performed at a research greenhouse in Moshav Mishmar Hashiva, Israel in July 2009 and has shown that the unique features of this cultivar are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.